DAM (Design, Analysis and Manufacturing)

The DAM group studies design, analysis and manufacture of technical products and systems. The group consists of four subgroups: Product Development and Innovation; Materials Design and Compliance; Virtual Modelling of Knowledge-based Engineering; and Production Processes.

Product Development and Innovation

The focus areas of this group are product development methodology and prototyping. The group is involved with multiple product development and innovation projects across several disciplines. Product development topics that we focus on include:

• Rapid prototyping
• Mechatronics
• Fuzzy front end
• Design thinking
• Lean product development
• Agile and flexible product development
• Set-based concurrent engineering

As a master’s or PhD student in our group you have the ability to work closely with industrial partners ranging from small entrepreneurial startups to large, established companies. The group is closely linked to NAPIC (NTNU Aluminium Product Innovation Centre) and our Rapid Prototyping Laboratory.

Materials Design and Compliance

The group works with advanced design of traditional and innovative materials employing emerging technologies and combining unusual fields and is closely linked to our Fatigue, Fracture and Mechanical Characterization Laboratory (link). The main objective is to design materials and complex components against fracture and fatigue at all scale levels taking advantage of the most advanced technologies for surface protection like Atomic Layer Deposition.

We focus on the following topics:

1. Design against fatigue and fracture of traditional, innovative and functional materials. In this regard, the structural integrity and fracture/fatigue assessment of additive materials plays a fundamental role.
2. Materials design at various scale levels reasoning macroscopic properties with nanoscale effects.
3. Compliant design as well as bottom up material synthesis from the atomic layer level
4. Interactions between process parameters and fatigue/fracture behavior of advanced materials as a key for the design at all the scale levels, combining knowledge within mechanics of materials, solid mechanics and advanced manufacturing processes.
5.  Structural integrity of welded connections obtained by traditional and innovative processes.

As a master or doctor degree student in our group, you become member of an international group with contacts all over the world and can choose to specialize in several directions.

The group offers PhDs in advanced design where you can write a doctoral thesis connected to research and development carried out in our research group. The following large master’s degree programmes has courses and projects related to our areas of research.

Virtual Modelling of Knowledge-based Engineering

This research group work with computer aided design (CAD), finite element analysis (FEA) and knowledge-based engineering (KBE). Some of the topics covered by this group are:

• Numerical simulations
• Digital twins
• Engineered-to-order systems (ETO) with CAD integration

Production Processes

The focus area of this group is metal forming processes, in particular aluminium forming. This group is closely linked to NAPIC and the Manulab centre. The group work on several traditional manufacturing processes such as extrusions and profile and tube bending. In addition to the existing processes, the group works on new innovative technologies such as screw extrusion of aluminium chips and new methods for solid state joining of aluminium.  

NTNU: DAM on Vimeo.